


Eyes Forward

by dagonst



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4117348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagonst/pseuds/dagonst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier has no past, and not much of a future.  Five times the Soldier tried to keep it that way, and one time he failed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old News

They start by asking questions, but he can’t understand anything, and can’t seem to get anything through with one-handed gestures. They work some of it out for themselves. How cold he can get. How long they can keep him that way. How sick he gets when they wake him up. Blood. Saliva. Measurements. Notes on clipboards. Repeat. They don’t seem to care about his unit, about his men; or maybe he’s just not clear enough.

The first snowfall turns the clearing between the window and the woodline pure white, and he remembers one drop at a time. There was a war, that part he remembers. And if there was a war, there was an enemy, and maybe that’s who has him now. 

They don’t think to bleed him too, and he doesn’t try to tell them about the blood in the snow. The blood had seemed important to him then, but perhaps it is not useful to them, the way it doesn’t seem to matter that he was a soldier, before. 

He’d had a friend; that’s his one secret. He doesn’t know why, at first, only to keep his mouth shut. His unit, the cold - even the blood, give them that instead. Later, when he gets more back... He’d loved his friend. Loved him too much, maybe. And they’d - well, the Army wouldn’t have approved. He doesn’t let the friend have a name, in his mind. Can’t risk screaming it when things get bad.

Because they want names. They want to know _who_ , and he’d love to tell them. Who did this, who was it, who helped. He’d love to tell them, and let them ask someone else their questions. Only he doesn’t remember. His friend would have helped, but isn’t here, and he’s glad for that. He watches the forest, when it’s allowed. The snow, when it’s there. 

When he has a name, he gives it to them. He doesn’t have any other use for it, except to buy a few minutes before they put him back into the cold. “Zola.” It doesn’t sound like a real name, but It means something to them. “Doktor Arnim Zola,” and he says yes even though he can’t be sure.

He thinks he sees Herr Doktor in the glass of the observation window. Balding, glasses, smooth round face. He’s shivering too hard to react. Too hard for his skin to crawl the way it wants to. A chant starts up in the back of his head, sounds worn to meaninglessness. 

He wakes up sick like always, shaking and shivering, his legs refusing to hold him. They clean him up. Soap that’s half sand, and a comb, and then they give him to Herr Doktor.

The room isn’t much bigger than his freezer. No window, two chairs, a table. No medical equipment, only papers. Questioning, he thinks, but that’s not enough to scare him anymore. He eyes the files, stacked messily on the desk, what looks like newsprint sticking out. If he’s fast, no-one would know - 

The newspaper headline says “Captain America Dead” and there’s a - a picture - he shuts the file, forgetting to be quiet. Sits down, and shoves the chair as far away from the desk as he can. He doesn’t know how long he waits there before the door opens again. 

Doktor Arnim Zola, the man he’d conjured up, is a rabbity little man with thick glasses and a nervous air. He sits, adjusts his files without opening them, and arranges his notepad and pen before speaking. “Sergeant. How is it you come to be here?”

“Lost my unit.” That’s safe to say; he’s said it enough before now. “How come I understand you?” There’s some trick to it, it’s no miracle. He’d almost rather go back to the cold room to be killed by inches.

The question gets him a frown and a scribbled note, nothing else. The doctor would have to call a guard in to punish him. “It is very simple. You understand me because you understand English. You do not understand Russian well because you have never spoken Russian before. You had a head injury, I think?”

He feels abruptly stupid. “It healed up. I thought - Can you get me out of here? I was a soldier - ”

“Yes, of course. I think we must first discuss your future.”

Someone knows who he is, and knows where he is. That’s all he’s wanted for - a long time, but it’s no relief, not from this man.

“I need to get back to my unit,” he says anyway. The doctor looks at his arm. “Even if I’m not good for much.” For anything, really. And his friend would try to help, but - but he wouldn’t want that.

Zola sighs. “The war has been declared over. If your unit survived - your missions were quite dangerous, I think - then it is disbanded already. You have been declared dead. And yet you live. And that, because of me. Do you remember?”

He remembers being sicker than he ever was in his life. Blood and snow. But he didn’t die. A trick, not a miracle. “No,” he says. “Can you get me home?”

“Hmm. You wish to return home a wounded hero, I think? Not all soldiers are heroes, sergeant. Your record was. . .” Zola hesitates. 

He lost his unit, that’s probably all Zola means, but it’s his friend he thinks of. He braces himself for the doctor to finish his thought, but the doctor only smiles. “I see you remember. Very few men have a chance to wipe their slates clean. But this has been done for you, here - you can walk away from that past.”.

He doesn’t want to walk away; he wants to get out of here, to find his friend. Was he supposed to read that file, was that why he’d been left here alone? He doesn’t need that - the choice is easy. He can die here in the cold, or can he do what Zola wants. “Anyone going to miss me back home?” He knows the answer, but it’s the kind of thing someone would ask.

“No, Sergeant, I think not.” Zola doesn’t smile, not yet. 

“Sounds good. What’s the catch?” 

“You will remain a soldier. Continue fighting the war, alone.”

He laughs, for the first time in forever. “Hate to tell you, doc, but - “ he raises his arm, the stump of it in the rolled-up sleeve. “That’s going to be one short war.”

“That is nothing. Prosthetics. I am here for humanitarian aid, you know. We will make you a fine arm, one fit for a soldier. I will install it myself.” 

“Thanks, Doc,” he says, although the idea of this doctor laying hands on him makes his skin crawl - he doesn’t feel like smiling anymore. He wonders if Zola would wave away his friend - how he felt about his friend - the same way. _That is nothing, we will pluck those thoughts out of your head._

Zola gives him a thin smile. “We men without a country must help each other, after all. I look forward to seeing you again, soldier.”


	2. Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mistake in orders lands the Winter Soldier in New York, looking for a contact who doesn't exist and a change in mission procedure.

Vanya had argued against going to the United States at all; they wanted an uncomplicated kill, an obvious killer, no mystery about the thing. But they wanted insurance, so they woke him up and smuggled him in, and the end he had nothing to do. So he packed up his gun, and now he’s in New York City.

His orders are glitchy. There was a rendezvous at the coast, a boat (or please not a submarine) - but he knows too that he should be in New York. Better to miss an extraction than a mission. 

It’s a long drive, but worrying over what he’s supposed to do in New York doesn’t give him any better ideas. He parks the car and leaves it, walks.

Zola’s in New York too. Upstate, dying of cancer for the second time. He doesn’t want to see Herr Doktor again. Zola’s a genius, no question. His new arm is still years ahead of anything the future has come up with. But Herr Doktor makes his skin crawl, with his rabbity face and his ‘please try not to scream’.

Brooklyn. He’s almost there, and he’s at the corner before he realizes - he was about to walk up in broad daylight and knock. Without knowing anything about the building, the occupants. He’s gone insane. He feels slightly better about the plan once he’s found a vantage point higher up, with eyes on the door. He doesn’t see anyone he recognizes as a contact. Two days. He finally goes into the apartment, thinking - he doesn’t know what, maybe someone else got there first, maybe his contact is dead in there. And it’s the wrong place. A family, kids, young. Nothing. He runs out like a regular thief. 

He catches a train upstate. Zola is thin now, skin drawn. “No more orders by computer, okay?” he says. “I missed my rendezvous. I don’t know what the hell happened. I was supposed to be here - New York. Tell them, program the information I need, but I want the orders verbally.” 

Zola blinks at him, makes that hmm that means he disagrees. “How many times, sergeant? You experience disorientation - ”

“As often as it takes to make it stick. I know I’m worth shit after going in the chair. If I can say it back, I’ve got it. You going to live long enough to tell them?”

“I intend to be with you for some time to come, soldier.”

He does not make any kind of face at that. “Another radiation cure?”

Zola smiles. “Much more permanent. Would you like to see?”

He knows he doesn’t, any more than he wants to know what’s left underneath the plating on his shoulder. He shrugs. Zola walks him straight through security (SHIELD, the Anglo-American organization), and he keeps his hand in his pocket. 

Herr Doktor shows him: a room full of magnetic tapes. _You see I have continued our early work on the recording of memory._ Somehow he never thought, that if they could put things into his head, they might also take things out. “You got anything of mine in here, Doc?” he asks without thinking. “Mission records?” 

Zola laughs. “You were a test case only; you must agree that your work speaks for itself. Perhaps your current employers maintain records, but here you are only a ghost” Zola’s crazier than he is, maybe. He makes sure to smile too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some apology is owed to Dr. Leo Szilard, since I gave his cancer to Dr. Zola. But not the cure: the regimen Szilard devised cured him completely, and he died of unrelated causes.


	3. Blaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HYDRA, doublespeak, and loyalty tests, or: the Winter Soldier hates the 1970's and everything else too.

“Hail HYDRA!”

It would have taken more effort, more restraint than he has when he’s just been woken, not to crush her throat. 

There’s a system, the system works, it should not be so much trouble to follow it. _He’s_ the one frozen for years on end. Defrost. Clothes. IV. Calibration. _Then_ food, because anything he gets down before going in the chair is going to come back up. No German. No English. No HYDRA. And after all that, they can give him his mission and then talk to him if they have to. He doesn’t have a lot left to say.

The technician twitches on the floor, leaking blood. “Clean that up,” he orders the other techs, all hovering just a little farther than they think he can reach. He could kill them all, even shivering from cryo. Only they’d be too much work to replace, and each generation is worse than the last. Rock and roll, blue jeans, and HYDRA.

They give him papers to go through, summaries of what he’s missed. Messages from Pierce, Stryker, Zola. Herr Doktor is dead; he read that in a stack just like this. Five missions ago, ten, they’re too similar to remember. But Zola died, and he’d stood up, his hand clenched around the paper. He can’t remember now if he’d wanted the man alive, or just the chance to kill him.

It doesn’t matter, because Zola left a thing behind him, a machine like the arm but worse, and if he ever gets back to - Pierce still wants to transfer him to the United States. Pierce ought to focus on keeping his hand in the American agencies, but instead he flatters. They’d used to work well together.

His handlers, they probably want to defect as well. These people are weak. Give them a week in the cold, a month in the red room, you would no longer recognize them. They wouldn’t hunger for American blue jeans. But they only think that the organization could get them out, all free. Their families, everything. Someday, he’ll wake up in the Land of the Free. Near New York, and Zola’s horrible machine. And then -

The mission first. He has a day in the city, then a plane to Siberia to terminate a obsolete program that has failed to get acceptable results. More information than he needs; more time too. He meets a woman in the city, a student of Western languages, and fails to shame her into sticking to good Russian. She laughs at him instead, tucking long red hair behind her ear. Her name is Ekaterin, and she’s perfect. Her room is filled with mementos. Tickets, drawings, postcards; just two snapshots. “I think it’s important to know where you come from,” she says as he scans them. “Don’t you?”

“It’s better to know where you’re going,” he answers. He knows two flights ahead, and that later they’ll send him to America. That he’ll kill them for that. It’s enough.

“And where are you going?” she asks, playing at seduction.

He grins back, playing along. “Straight to hell.”

He’s not good at jokes anymore - something in his expression or posture that the programming can’t correct. But she tips her head back anyway, laughs. The whole night is like that: a dance they’re both pretending not to know too well. She’s perfect, and she covers for him when he steps on her toes.

The next morning, it’s a plane that might be older than he is. Another old war veteran they keep patching up.

He thinks of her - Ekaterin - when he reaches his objective. No fences here, only forest, and perhaps tigers. A long desperate hike to the railroad. The one-armed ghost who had become Vanya would not have made it. He sets the incendiaries in the night, hesitates in the file room. The records were kept well; it is no trouble to find what he wants. Any good Russian can smell a loyalty test. _Do you want to know what you were, soldier? Would you like to_ be _what you were? Crippled and freezing to death?_ He sets fire to the thick file, lays it on top of the shelf to join the blaze. 

But he finds the other file before he goes, and that one he tucks into his jacket, for a dead-drop in Moscow. Natalia, the dancer. No-one will miss her in this inferno.


	4. Wreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sergeant Barnes. You remember me?” The target will die faster if he thinks he has completed his mission. Part 4 of a Winter Soldier 5+1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky Barnes assassinates Howard Stark: that's already pretty bad. I've done my best to make it worse.

The car swerves to avoid the collision. Hits the unnaturally slick span of road, skids, and goes over the edge. The target has good eyesight for his age. Good reflexes. A team will repair the road, monitor for other drivers. Will pick up the discarded jacket, green - the obstruction had to be visible, visibly human. Face, hand, clothing. Visibility is no longer useful.

The car crumpled, engine smashed, lights gone. One target terminated, crushed. The driver moves. Stark, Howard. Director of SHIELD. Industrialist, profiteer. A bullet to the head would be quickest, but would not appear natural. 

Stark holds a gun, make unknown. Prototype. Stark International manufactures weapons for the United States, allied nations, SHIELD. The target is capable of speech, but not effective aim. Gathering intelligence is not the mission. 

“You’re there, aren’t you. I saw you - Sergeant. Sergeant Barnes!”

The remainder of the car is crushed. It looks right. One of the agents at the top of the rise looks over, runs a hand across his throat. The target must be silenced. It must appear natural. He steps forward.

The target is dying. Blood loss, shock: not necessary to determine which. No intervention needed, only silence. “Jesus, it is you.” Not silent, but quieter. “Sergeant Barnes. You remember me?”

The target will die faster if he thinks he has completed his mission. “Barnes,” he echoes. “Yes? Stark. Howard.” 

“That’s right. Good. This is important, Sergeant. They had you on ice, didn’t they - need to tell you what’s going on.”

Cryo. “Yes.” 

“When Zola had you, he must’ve dosed you with something. He was trying to make super-soldiers, before we got him.”

Stark beckons, still holding his weapon. Closer, the metal arm is visible. The jacket is too far away to use. Stark blinks, then refocuses. “Can anyone else hear us?”

“All signals are jammed.”

“Good. Listen, Sergeant, you have to find Cap. He’s above the arctic circle. You get that? If he froze too, he’s still alive. Like you. You can find him.”

“Cap?” Captain. U.S. Army rank. 

“Right, Steve Rogers, Captain America.” Howard smiles. “Pretty sure you didn’t forget him.” 

“No. Not him.” The cleaning crew at the top is nearly done. “What should I do?”

“First chance you get - get away, find my people. Find Peggy Carter, in D.C. She hasn’t changed a bit. If you’re smart, you’ll say she hasn’t aged either.”

“Who else?”

“Nick Fury. Black kid, one eye. Older than you now. Active SHIELD, he’ll be the one coming after you for this.”

The target is slowing. Nearly done. “Anyone else?”

“My kid, Anthony. He doesn’t know anything but he’s got the brains and he’ll have the company. He’ll love your arm.” 

“Margaret Carter. Nicholas Fury. Anthony Stark. Tell them, Captain Rogers may be alive.”

“That’s it. Well, and Obadiah - but that's enough. We looked for Cap, but - as a retrieval mission, not a rescue. You’ve changed everything. Wish I could be there to see it.”

“I’m sorry.” Sergeant Barnes, whoever he was, would have apologized.

“Don’t give me that shit, _find Cap._ ” Stark focuses again. “You heal fast too. They put you in the middle of the road like a crash-test dummy. Except your arm. You can move that, right? The metal? I want to see.”

Stark does not expect rapid movement, lacks the strength to keep his weapon. The revolver has the Stark label, numbers cut in by hand. The metal hand bends the barrel.

“Your fingers - that's good. My company is twenty years away - just the mechanics. Tony, maybe ten. And the neural interface - Look, you tell my kid, hire whoever designed that.”

“Zola. He’s dead.” 

“ _Arnim_ Zola? Shit. _Shit_ , I -” Stark starts coughing. Stops, weaker. “You get Cap out of the ice. Bring him home. Wake him up. We need him bad.”

Sergeant Barnes would agree, would promise. But he remembers, in a sudden flash, _being woken up_ and can’t get the words out. “Best man I ever knew.” The voice comes out shaky. 

Stark grins, fierce. “That’s right. Give ‘em hell.” 

The team is waiting. Extraction in forty minutes. Stark doesn’t take that long.

Mission report. “Target, Maria Stark. Death confirmed, 01:18. Target, Howard Stark. Death confirmed, 01:43. No complications.”

“Howard took a while, didn’t he. I hope you didn’t find that too hard to watch. Did he say anything important?” 

“No.” Intelligence gathering was not part of the mission; HYDRA knows everything it needs to.


	5. Underwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymity is a poor refuge, but it's better than facing HYDRA or Captain America again. Post-CATWS, no Ultron spoilers.

Sixty soldiers in an underground base built and stocked for twenty - HYDRA isn’t what it used to be. If it ever had been. Tunnelling in the jungle had been someone’s brilliant idea, decades ago, and maybe it had even been sealed then. Now, they run the pumps all night. 

Only one of the refugees recognized him - not a soldier, a tech. She died like a good agent, though, pulled the trigger herself. Suicide, not the first here. He let them take the gun; he was burning with fever, then. Malaria, they said, and he didn’t argue. As soon as he recovered, he found a way outside, overlooked by those less familiar with old base designs. Started going up there nights, to avoid company.

“Hands over your head. Hand, I guess.” He wears his weapon in a sling, bandaged. It causes fewer questions than a metal arm. “Hey, you hear me? _Espanol?_ ” 

The man is only a scout. He keeps his eyes on the treeline, waiting for the real advance. “ _It is not forbidden_ ,” he says. In Russian, and lying. He is supposed to be in that hole with the rest of them.

“ _Off the edge, comrade._ ” He ignores that too, and the warning shot that hits the edge of the roof, an inch to the left of his calf, and sticks in the low wall. He made a bow with string once - the arrows wobbled and fell to the ground, perhaps ten feet away. Sidewalk or dust? Real memory, or false?

He pulls the arrow out and stares at it, then turns back to look at the shooter. Black gear, duffel bag, tanned face, bare arms, and another arrow. “ _You are not authorized._ ” Surrender is not allowed, he thinks. Did he surrender once? Not to a sweating man carrying a child’s toy. 

“ _I am not authorized_ ,” the man confirms. “ _I shoot things instead. Step away, drop your weapons._ ”

It is good to hear Russian again. But he can’t trust it; he switches to Spanish. “ _No guns._ ” 

English: “Do not fuck with me. Knives and grenades too.”

“No guns,” he repeats. No-one in the bunker speaks Russian, even badly. No-one knows what he did in Washington D.C. “Here, they are short.” Another lie: the weapons are secured to prevent more deaths.

“And you’re the guy they didn’t give one to? Maybe it’s that death-glare thing. Or the hair? The Prince Valiant look was better. I’m Hawkeye.” He’d cut his hair military-short; it hasn’t grown back. He doesn’t remember how long it should take.

“Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye. Associate of the Black Widow, Captain America. Inactive.” His response is not quite correct. “Codename, Winter Soldier.” Better.

“Uh huh. The Winter Soldier is AWOL on the roof, unarmed.”

“They’re losing.” His fault, maybe. He should have reported in weeks ago. Told them what he is, what he can do. Accepted punishment, calibration, a new mission. Only, they would send him against Captain America again. 

“No shit.” Hawkeye wipes his brow. “Can’t happen fast enough. Ever think about think about defecting, Vanya?”

He must have been Vanya once, the way he was James Buchanan Barnes. He shrugs, one-shouldered. “To where? SHIELD’s best sniper uses a weapon that has been obsolete for centuries.”

“Oh, they’d give you guns, if you can’t handle a bow.” The man pulls the arrow free of the bow, restores both to their place and approaches empty-handed. He fishes around in his bag and comes up with two battered protein bars. “We’ve got a while. May as well eat.” Hawkeye should assemble his machine gun first, but instead he zips the bag again.

The soldier takes the food. Poison is unlikely to disable him. Hawkeye is not known to use it, even on his arrows. It tastes like chocolate. They used to trade it, or hand it out to kids - a long time ago. He looks out at the road again. The assault force will come in hot...

Hawkeye watches him, squinting. “You want to keep running, now’s a good time. North to the river, then downstream. Two, three days. They’ll know you’ve been here, but you’d have time to disappear again.”

“No. It’s over, here.” This is the end of the line. The way Captain Rogers meant it, when he dropped his shield. Only, he doesn’t know yet if he can stop fighting.

“I cannot let you do some blaze of glory thing,” Hawkeye answers. He understands the English. Not the idiom, but it means interference that he does not want.

“You have a mission. My actions are not your concern.” A competent agent would not risk his mission. 

The man grimaces. “You light out, that’s one thing. But you can’t do anything stupid, I gotta be able to look Cap in the eye afterwards.”

He couldn’t stay on the same continent. Can’t answer now; he shrugs, and turns back to the treeline. He can hear Hawkeye behind him, walking. Contacting his base for further orders; the buzz of the phone is audible. 

He does not expect the tap on his shoulder and whirls around, stepping backwards and nearly into the edge. “Phone for you, pal. Two minutes before things get loud. Oh, you got a good line of sight on the airfield?”

“They give you that toy, and no map.”

“I got a map, but it’s your roof. Your airfield too. Mind if I set up my toys?”

Hawkeye should have already known where the airfield was. Where to set up his weapon. If he’d had a decent briefing. If it’s not a test. “Four meters from the northeast corner, you’ll have most of the road.”

“Great. Play nice, now, it’s a party line.” Hawkeye shoves the phone against his hand, and stalks away, leaving him to catch the device. 

The voice from the telephone sounds tentative. “Hello - strike that. What’s the situation?”

Part of him wants to throw the device, and run. Through the swamp, like Hawkeye said. He reports, instead. “HYDRA base under a truck depo. The roof is secure. Attack is imminent. They cleared an airstrip - mostly - and will try to reach that. The roof has line of sight to the road.” He hesitates. “I did not ask him to call.”

“I know,” the captain says. A pause. “I’m not good in Russian, but - _I will try? If it helps?_ ”

“I don’t know. You sound Ukrainian.” Mostly he sounds American. Maybe Captain America would object to sounding too Russian, would want to keep the accent. 

“ _We had records from Kiev. Is it right?_ ”

“Very good. But I have nothing to give you.”

“That’s - “ the phone is interrupted by the first shot from the main force. Rocket launcher to the main door. No secondary explosion from the trucks inside: a good shot. “Are they trying to take the base intact?”

“And everyone alive - not like the old days. How’s Barton doing?”

“Barton is shooting only arrows.” He walks over to take a look. Barton shoots steadily, covering the road to the airstrip until his allies can circle around through the jungle to secure it. He’s set up his machine gun, loaded it - and hasn’t touched it since. “Showing off.”

Someone’s trying to make a break in one of the trucks. Hawkeye’s shot misses the front tire, and it sticks to the side of the hood, barely visible. Then the truck explodes. He blinks at the wave of heat. “Exploding arrows?” Hawkeye grins.

“Not everything’s terrible in the 21st century,” the phone tells him.

“Tell SHIELD that, not me. You should have worn Kevlar.” A shot whistles past, wide. Someone’s gotten to the far side of the truck, using it as cover to shoot back toward the building. “Your people?”

“Nope,” Hawkeye answers, aiming for the truck again.

“What’s going on?” the voice asks. The captain. 

“New HYDRA position behind the truck Hawkeye stopped. Returning fire.”

“Right. Cover Hawkeye, make them keep their heads down.”

He takes one step forward, then stops. “Is that - are you giving me _orders?_ ” The machine gun is ready - like Hawkeye had planned for backup.

“I’m only talking. But you know that’s what needs to be done.” 

“I don’t.” Captain Rogers had been his target, his mission. He’d known what needed to be done, then. But he’d failed, and Rogers had stopped fighting, and everything’s been fucked since. 

“You do. But you don’t have to do anything. Don’t have to look at a gun again, if you don’t want. You just can come home.” 

He knows better than that. He has nowhere left to go to, and that lets him shut out all the rest. The tactical situation is clear. He has a weapon, already in position. 

“This is what I was made for,” he says. He puts the phone down. He doesn’t need to think about James Buchanan Barnes now, only the mission. Everything else is easy.

“We’ll be landing a couple choppers in what used to be your airfield,” Hawkeye says, some time later. “Please do not shoot them down. You and I should be on the return flight. We’ve got a place in Rio - Avengers-we. It’s going to be way more fun than an official interrogation.”

Mission complete. Time for - for debriefing, reset. Whatever equivalent they have in SHIELD. Whatever the Captain says. He should have gone through the swamp, but it’s too late for that. He follows; it doesn’t feel like changing sides.


	6. Desensitization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The desensitization procedure has changed. Not dulling the Winter Soldier’s response to pain until it was no longer a liability in combat. Now it means letting some stranger poke at him until he snaps and kills them. “So I’ll do it,” Steve Rogers said.

He strips to his waist, lies face-down and waits for the program to start. He had requested a mission. He’s been falling to pieces since he got here. Nightmares, flashbacks, hair-trigger violence. Sam Wilson said it’s happening now, because now he feels safe. It’s happening because now he is _useless_. Too broken for a mission. Bad things happen to useless assets.

And their handlers. So when Steve Rogers gave him that too-long list of things he _could_ do, _if he wanted_ , _not everything at once, just one thing_ , he read it. Metabolism studies; medical scans; therapy; the arm... “Desensitization. I’ve done that before.”

“I don’t think it’s the same, Bucky.” Steve knows more about the Winter Soldier than anyone alive. He’s read all the records - translated, mostly, but he has a Russian medical dictionary. And he was right: it was not the same. Not dulling the Winter Soldier’s response to pain until it was no longer a liability in combat. Now it means letting some stranger poke at him until he snaps and kills them. Rogers does not know how many people have been killed like that, because incidental casualties were not noted in the Winter Soldier’s records. Neither does he, because they all looked alike.

“So I’ll do it,” Steve Rogers had said.

And then the glitch in his programming fired off. He’s nothing but errors and systems failures now, and there’s a glitch that happens sometimes when Steve Rogers wants him to do something - something stupid or useless or ridiculous. And he agrees. He hasn’t told anyone. The glitch makes it look like Steve has control over his asset; even if that means he does something stupid like coming here, like agreeing to therapy, that is useful. But no-one ever programmed the Winter Soldier to react to _Steve Rogers_ like that, so it’s a glitch. 

Steve talked to the doctor, and now he does the desensitization work with Steve. 

His body remembers things he doesn’t, throwing up garbage muscle memory that sometimes turns into flashbacks. Touching - initiating touch - would be a problem if he wanted to do that. He doesn’t. Steve makes him work on it anyway. 

But all he has to do today is lie still - compliant - for Steve to work over. He read the instructions when Steve did, knows what Steve will do, how Steve will touch him. It’s more involved than previous sessions, but nothing likely to trigger bad memories. No equipment, and he knows Steve Rogers is not a doctor. The instructions contained other recommendations: candles, lowered lighting, music. He’d looked up in time to see Steve’s ears go red. “We can skip all that,” Steve promised. 

“Okay to start?” Steve asks first. He uses oil that smells like almonds, not cooking oil. His hands are warm, and firm. Steve has never done this before, he said, but there’s no uncertainty in the touch. Steve doesn’t hesitate, once he’s decided what he wants. 

He checks in now, though, more often than he needs to. “Okay, Buck?” 

“Yes. Still.” Better than that. Steve’s hands are warm. He had relaxed before - compliant - but under Steve’s hands his muscles release further. Warmth pools in his belly, his groin. He wonders if that is the intended response, if he should report. He’s supposed to report adverse reactions, if they aren’t obvious. He’s supposed to keep still for Steve. He doesn’t _want_ to move.

There’s one part of the exercise that Steve can’t do, because Bucky has a metal plate over his shoulder, and neither of them know exactly what’s what, there. (The arm is on that list. But _just one thing_.) Steve pauses at the edge of the scarring. “I’m going to skip down now. Still okay?”

“It feels good. You can talk, if you want.” 

“Good, huh? That’s a first.” Talking should be a distraction, but it isn’t. It’s on the edge of overwhelming, Steve’s voice and his hands at the same time. He keeps still. 

“Yes. Maybe you should do one. Get one.” Steve is tense as often as not.

“Maybe I will. You offering?”

“No.” He can imagine it, for a second - Steve Rogers half-naked and spread out. He shouldn’t be thinking about that. “Couldn’t do it right with one hand. Yours are warm.”

“Not like I’d know any different.” 

He snorts. Steve Rogers, trying to make something fit that won’t. Trying to make him fit. He squeezes his own arm, feels the resistance of flesh, the location of the bone. The sensors do not detect the muscle, how tense or relaxed it is. It hurts. “You’d know.” 

Arousal is a physiological reaction. Impersonal. The body, reacting to touch that doesn’t hurt, that feels good, for the first time in - a long time. A very long time. 

“Just think about it.” He’s started to think that Steve knows about the glitch, that sometimes he tries to set it off. This time it fails. 

“Fine. We get done here, I’ll look up one-handed massage on the internet. Maybe there’s video.” Then he thinks about what kind of video that’s likely to be, and decides to think about something else. Steve goes quiet too. 

Steve presses down on his shoulders and something clicks - that angle, the pressure - and next - “don’t move.” His arms were - they should be over his head, not underneath. He moves them, and Steve moves away, until he’s beside the couch, not hovering over his head. Closer to correct. “Right hand, my wrist. Pressure.” It takes him a minute to find the words, but when he does, Steve moves.

“This okay, Buck?”

He considers. He feels - focused, now. Report. “Yes. Your left is - “

“Here,” Steve says, quiet. Steve’s fingers skim down his side to close over his hipbone. It brings Steve in closer, leaning in - voice over his left shoulder.

The angle isn’t quite - Steve should be behind him, he was bent over. Behind him, and not holding so damn still. But the touch - the way his hand moved - that was right, exactly right. His breath had picked up, and he’d - they’d been - he and - His friend. 

The next thing that registers is his shoulders hitting the wall. The door. Trapping Steve here.

“If you try to leave, I will kill you.” He wants to scream and never stop. Wants to strike, fast and hard. Get it over with.

“Nowhere I’d rather be,” Steve claims, and sits on the floor, leans against the back of the couch. He needs to find out how much Steve knows, and how. And then he needs to kill Steve. Clear enough. Like orders. “We should talk about -”

“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, how did you _know?_ They never did. I never told.” Not that he could give away anything useful. No names. Just that sequence of movements and: _I had a friend, once. Before. They can’t ever know._

“I know you didn’t, Bucky -” 

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps.

“James,” Steve says instead. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.” Steve Rogers argued over that name while the helicarrier was falling out of the air, no chance he’ll let it go now. 

“Whatever.” Steve flinches at that. That’s good, he decides. Steve should know that he can hurt him. 

How the hell did Steve know? Steve knows - more than he does, even, it would be hard to know _less_. He had to keep it safe; he didn’t need to know anything to do that, he only had to recognize the triggers.

Unless it never was a secret. 

Steve’s read all the files. The directive to protect his secret feels like orders, cold and certain. _Kill anyone who finds out._ Maybe they put it in there, buried it deep, as a test. If the asset starts talking about having a _friend_ , wipe him again. If the asset reacts to the wrong triggers - God, if that’s all it ever was - 

He pitches forward, onto his knees, retching. His stomach twisted into a ball. The world narrows to his malfunctioning body, and a dim awareness of the tar - Steve Rogers, moving without leaving. Steve does not take the opportunity to leave, summon backup, stop him. 

His shirt. A towel over his shoulders. Water. Comfort; things Steve can do without touching him. If it’s just old programming - he doesn’t have to obey that anymore. Steve said. He wouldn’t have to kill Steve and - 

“It wasn’t real.” He swallows, forces the words out. “It’s... it’s okay, I just - I thought.” Stop shaking, stop _crying_. Smile, to make Steve believe it’s okay. “They put all kinds of things in my head, so they... they made me think I had a secret. Something to protect. You can - can show me the records.” He’s never looked at them, never had to. Steve does that.

“They had nothing to do with that, Buck. 1944, France. We had a hotel - ”

His stomach clenches again. “Shut _up_. I want to see the records, Steve.” 

“I’m not going to lie to you. You never told them anything, Bucky. Not in seventy years.” Steve has that look, jaw tight, stupid-stubborn. It blurs out, and he wipes his face. 

“I didn’t tell you either." Steve won’t help. He remembers everything he ever said to Steve Rogers, except the first thing, _who the hell is Bucky_. That got wiped away and Steve told him, after the jungle. He remembers I’m with you till the end of the line. But Steve won’t help him. 

“That’s true,” Steve admits. “Okay. Can you tell me now, what you remember?”

 _Who were you with, soldier, who helped you?_ “No. More. Questions.” Stops with the metal hand around Steve’s throat, and ice in his veins. 

Steve hasn’t tried to protect himself from the Winter Soldier. But he - for all his training, he can’t. He had a secret, but couldn’t keep it safe. The closest thing he’s had to a mission, to clarity, since the helicarrier went down in flames, and he can’t complete it. Steve won’t even lie or leave, and he still - can’t.

He drops his hand, settles back on his knees. “I had a friend. Before.”

“Buck, you don’t have to - not like this. You’re upset.”

He is tired. Broken, and tired. There’s not room for anything else. “I had a friend,” he repeats. “Before. He died, I don’t know how. I - Herr Doktor made sure I knew. It was a lesson. I don’t want to remember any more.” 

“Yes, you do.” Steve grabs his shoulders. He keeps his head down. “You didn’t carry it so long for no reason. It’s important now, Buck. Please. Try to remember.” 

Sometimes Steve tells him to do something, and he just - does. The only thing he has time to think is, _the glitch_. And then he screams.


	7. Recalibration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s hard to say, after so long. “You were my friend. We were friends. We were always friends.”   
> Recalibration. New information, new orders, pushed into his brain. He’d had a friend, before. Who wasn’t lost, or demobbed, or killed. Who stopped fighting, who tracked him down, who stayed after he started falling apart. Steve.

There was a space in which very little happened. He never lost consciousness, but attention was not required. Things happened around him: movement, noise, contact. Simple orders in the otherwise indistinguishable noise: _stand, come, sit_. He is moved to the desired positions. _Drink._ Contact, noise. Positioning. _\- sleep, okay Bucky?_ He slept.

There was a glitch. He has been moved to his room, covered in blankets. The light fixture is on. It still smells like almonds. Steve Rogers is facedown on his right, kneeling on the floor, head cradled in his crossed arms. His back rises and falls, slow. Captain America does not snore.

817 breaths later, Steve pushes himself back, winces, and then looks up. “Hey. How do you feel?” It’s not a question he usually gets an answer to, so he doesn’t pause long. “Have you been awake long?”

“Recalibrated.” Stripped clean. Improved. “I interrupted you.”

“I don’t need much sleep. You want to talk?” He pushes the blankets off, then edges past Steve to stand and begin the series of exercises necessary to test reflexes and control. Steve would not allow the equipment - the chair - for a real recalibration into the facility, would not use it on him. But it feels better to move. Steve sits on the bed, does not leave when he has proven that he remains functional. He has to answer, then.

“It was a flashback. You pushed me down on the bed; you - pushed between my legs, I used your hand. You had your jacket on.” Steve nods, slightly. Frowning. He adds, “I shot you. Three times. - I interrupted the session. That was you. You...” It’s hard to say, after so long. “You were my friend. We were friends. We were always friends.”

Recalibration. New information, new orders, pushed into his brain. He’d had a friend, before. Who wasn’t lost, or demobbed, or killed (and _fuck_ Zola for that). Who stopped fighting, who tracked him down, who stayed after he started falling apart. Steve. 

“That’s right, Buck, we’re friends. Always.” He doesn’t recognize the expression on Steve’s face. Not frowning, now. Intent. Wanting. He looks away again.

“I was supposed to find you. I failed - I - insufficient effort. They gave me orders to kill you, and I took them.” Old information. A real recalibration would have deleted it; instead the memories stick and burn. 

“Bucky, no. How the hell were you supposed to find me? When? I crashed that plane before you ever got out of the mountains. Even Howard Stark didn’t figure out where.” Steve grins, more hopeful than amused. “First time we were both thawed out at the same time, you didn’t waste any time showing up.”

“Nicholas Fury survived.” Another mission he failed. If he had killed his target, Steve Rogers wouldn’t smile about it.

“What?” Steve looks appropriately startled. 

“Unimportant. I shot you.” 

“Unimportant,” Steve fires back. “I survived. _We_ survived. That’s what matters. Anyway - if you’d wanted to kill me, you would’ve aimed better.”

He’d been half-strangled; shoulder dislocated, the other still on fire from an injury he doesn’t remember. Even his handlers would not have assumed he could shoot straight. Steve wants that to be true, and Steve is his friend. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.” 

“I’m right a lot. In case you didn’t remember.” Steve grins, and beckons him over. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had been a good man. Before. Or did he just give Steve everything he could, because it was Steve asking? It felt right to lie; and Steve buys it without a question. 

He drops back to the bed, next to Steve. “I don’t. Only what I said. And Steve, what the hell _was_ that?” That museum exhibit - the SHIELD files - the internet - they hadn’t talked about Captain America fucking his sergeant. 

“That was - you don’t remember...” Steve trails off, watching. “You don’t remember what that was,” he finishes, wanting him not to say no.

He keeps his own face blank. “No. I don’t.” Steve always wants to talk, so Steve can tell him. And then say why he didn’t tell him before.

“Okay.” Steve squares his shoulders. “Okay. We - people - people are supposed to reproduce, to have children. So the way we’re made, it feels good to do the sorts of things that lead to children.”

It’s Steve’s fault, for being vague. But if he were anything like Bucky Barnes, if he were _good_ , he wouldn’t let Steve keep talking. Instead he grips his side with the metal hand - pain is distracting - and looks at the wall. Then down at his feet. Not at Steve. 

“Certain parts of the body are sensitive, the - the penis and - other places. Touching them feels good, and there’s a - a release. It relieves tension, sometimes. People do that, together. Sometimes to make children, sometimes - just to feel good for a while.” 

Steve finally winds to a stop on his own. It’s a better speech than he could have given. Steve’s mother was a nurse, the museum said. “Did we...” he takes a careful breath. He can’t quite steady his voice, whispers: “Did we make a child?”

Every _inch_ of Steve Rogers’ body radiates shocked horror. “No! No, we - Bucky - No. God -” When he pitches off the bed, shaking with laughter, the stammer ends in, “you - you _son of a bitch_.” 

It takes him a couple tries to stop laughing. Steve kicks him, but he smiles first, and telegraphs the move. He shot Steve, he _followed orders_ to shoot Steve. He shouldn’t be allowed to laugh anymore, but - But Steve. “I know how sex works,” he says, as soon as he can get the words out. 

“Uh huh. Anything else slipped your mind, you ask Sam. Or Google.”

“Google said the same thing you did,” he reports. “You and Sergeant Barnes were best friends. Nothing about sex. Not from credible sources.” He looks at the ceiling, past Steve’s head. “You don’t have to tell me.” He shouldn’t have asked, he realizes suddenly. If it were important - if he had needed to know about it, Steve would have told him already. 

“It was just - to feel good for a while,” Steve says, quiet. “We weren’t like that, you know? You had a bunch of girls, and I did my best. . . The war, I guess. Everything had changed, and we both needed to feel good sometimes. We’re friends; that’s the important thing.” 

Right. The important thing, the one he forgot all about. Asking about stupid, irrelevant things instead. Fuck. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, pulling his attention back. 

He pushes himself up, settles at Steve’s feet. Steve frowns, stands. He presses his hand against Steve’s waist - not gripping, just to keep him from moving away. Tilts his head to see Steve’s face. “This is right. Isn’t it?” 

Steve goes red. “No. No, Bucky. Not like that.“ He twists around the hand and sits too. Grabs his hand before he can pull it back, and grips it. “You don’t kneel for anyone, understand?” 

“Yes.” But it _had_ been like that. He had. Bucky Barnes had loved Steve Rogers, had followed him as far as he could. Hadn’t deserved him even then, and now - Now, he has to do better. Stop being something Steve needs to worry about. He’d made Steve laugh before. “Must’ve made blowjobs awkward.” 

Steve stares, then smirks. “Some things you gotta figure on your own, pal.” He must have said that once, with that accent and that grin. Maybe someday he’ll remember what happened next, or what they’d been talking about. Maybe Steve will tell him. 

“Put it on that list, if you want,” he says. Carelessly, like it hasn’t occurred to him that he’d have to work with Steve on that, too. 

Steve doesn’t choke or blush, or anything else to show he saw the offer buried in that. But he doesn’t storm out without a word, like when he’d suggested Steve scare up some HYDRA lab techs to program him to be Bucky Barnes. Doesn’t start looking worried again. “One thing at a time.” It’s good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
